Thread: First attempt at cleaning up a blade. Advice needed.

I've been to the local Halfords today and now have Silicon Carbide wet dry sandpaper in the following grits: 240 - 320 - 600 - 800 - 1200 - 1500.

Is this an acceptable progression, or should I be looking for other grits like 1000 or 2000?

Originally Posted by dannywonderful

I've been to the local Halfords today and now have Silicon Carbide wet dry sandpaper in the following grits: 240 - 320 - 600 - 800 - 1200 - 1500.

Is this an acceptable progression, or should I be looking for other grits like 1000 or 2000?

That sounds good to me, maybe get some Maas or fitz for the final polish. Turtle wax rubbing compound works really well for removing those last scratches too....

I've got Autosol, which is similar to Maas. I've just spent over an hour rubbing away with the sandpaper and even at 800 grit the difference is major. There are still some pitting marks, but I suspect I'd have to rub off a lot of metal to completely eradicate those and I quite like having a bit of " history " showing on the blade anyway. I think I'll be honing this razor tomorrow!

Well I had a bit of trouble going from 800 to 1200 grits. The 1200 was struggling to remove the scratches left by the 800 and I could probably have done a little better with it. I think I may order a Dremel kit while they're on special offer, as I'm likely to be doing this again before too long. The Autosol put a nice enough finish on it, but I'm sure a Dremel would make it sparkly and shiny.

I've since honed it too and although I had to do around 300 laps on the yellow coticule with slurry, the rest of the honing process went really well and I have a nice edge on it ready for my shave tomorrow morning.

I don't have my camera at the moment, so these were taken with my iPhone, but you can see the improvement over the dull metal in the original photos. I will probably go over the razor again when the Dremel gets here just so I know I did the best job I could on it.

Nice Job. One small point tho. If you dremel over an already honed razor you'll likely need to re-hone it.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

Nice Job. One small point tho. If you dremel over an already honed razor you'll likely need to re-hone it.

Yeah, I thought that was probably the case. I don't have the Dremel kit yet and I'm using the razor quite happily as it is.

I bet you are. The first is always special & Genevas are great shavers..
Enjoy !